Saturday, September 26, 2015

Remembering Tomás Ceannt – soldier, patriot, revolutionary

Mise agus nieces of Tomás Ceannt

On a bright
May morning in 2000 I spoke at the unveiling of a memorial in Cork City to the 1916
patriot Tomás Ceannt at Ceannt railway station. The Ceannt Memorial had been
commissioned and erected by a committee of railway workers and was unveiled by
Kathleen Ceannt, a niece of Tomás Ceannt.

Last Friday
the sun shone brightly down again as I laid a wreath at the memorial and later
at St. Nicholas’s Church in Castlelyons in north county Cork where the Ceannt
family, their friends and neighbours and thousands of admirers of Tomás Ceannt took
part in his historic state funeral.

For the last
99 years Tomás – sometimes referred to as ‘The Forgotten Volunteer’ - has lain
in a shallow unmarked grave behind the walls of Cork prison. He was one of only
two of the 1916 patriots to be executed outside of Dublin. The other was Roger
Casement who was hanged in London.

But in truth
he was never forgotten. Not by his family and not by republicans who have celebrated
his life and death, and those of the other patriots of 1916, each year since
1916. Nor is he the only Irish republican prisoner executed by the British and
buried in the grounds of a prison. Just months before I spoke at the unveiling
of the Cork station memorial in 2000 the remains of Tom Williams were finally
laid to rest in a family plot in Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast.

Tom Williams
was only 19 years of age when he was executed in Crumlin Road Jail. A massive
campaign, which included a 200,000-signature petition, to secure his reprieve
was ignored by the British and Stormont authorities and the execution went
ahead on 2 September 1942. Like Tomás Ceannt the body of Tom Williams had lain buried
in an unmarked grave within the prison walls for 58 years.

The Manchester Martyrs continue
to lie in unmarked graves in New Bailey prison in Manchester. William Allen,
Michael Larkin and Michael O’Brien were hanged in November 1867 for their part
in an ambush to free two Fenian leaders. Their bravery in the course of an
infamous show trial, their cry of ‘God Save Ireland’ from the dock, and their resolve
and courage in the face of death sentences are the stuff of legend.

Tomás Ceannt
was born in 1865 at Ban Ard House, Castlelyons, one of nine children. As a
young man he emigrated to the United States but returned in his mid-20s and
became actively involved in the Land War. The Ceannt family had long been
active in agitation against British rule, the Land War and a cousin was
involved in the Fenian 'dynamite campaign' in Britain. Tomás was also a member
of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael (GAA) and the Gaelic League.

In 1914 Tomás and
his brothers were among the first recruits to the Cork Brigade of the Irish
Volunteers and they formed the core of that body in the area with Tomás becoming
commandant of the Galtee Battalion in 1916. In February 1916 he was imprisoned
for two months for agitation. Immediately on his release, he resumed his
activities. As preparations got underway for the 1916 Rising, the Irish
Volunteers in the East Cork area were led by Tomás Ceannt and Terence McSwiney

However, Eoin
MacNeill's countermanding order to the Volunteers not to rise at Easter caused
great confusion amongst their ranks outside Dublin. The failure of Roger
Casement to get weapons through also meant there was a chronic lack of arms. The
Ceannts and their local Volunteer company decided to secure what arms they had
and to go into hiding.

When they heard
that the Rising in Dublin was over, the brothers decided to return home on the
night of 1st May. Early the next morning, the house was surrounded by a party
of RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary) who demanded their surrender.

Despite being
armed with only one rifle and three shotguns, the brothers gave no
consideration to surrender. A fierce gunfight ensued. The Ceannt brothers were supported
by their 84-year-old mother who loaded the guns. One brother, David, was
injured, and RIC Head Constable Rowe was shot dead. The Ceannt’s were all
captured when they ran out of ammunition.

The RIC lined
them up against the farmhouse wall and only the intervention of a medical
officer prevented their immediate execution. As they were being led away,
Richard Ceannt attempted to escape across the fields but was fatally wounded in
the back.

Tomás was taken
to Cork Detention Barracks where he was strictly isolated from the other
prisoners. There is a famous photograph of him and his brother William walking
across the bridge at Fermoy. The hands of both are tied and Tomás is in his
stockinged feet. They are accompanied by a British Army officer and three
British Army soldiers shouldering rifles with bayonets attached. Behind them is
a horse and cart in which it is believed lay the wounded David and Richard and
their mother.

Tomás Ceannt
was charged with ‘waging war against His
Majesty the King’ quickly court-martialled and sentenced to death. He was
shot by firing squad on May 9th in Victoria Barracks, now Cork
Prison by a British naval detachment from Cobh. He died, in the words of the
British officer in charge, "very bravely, not a feather out of him''.

The British had
by that stage already executed 12 of the leaders, including Tom Clarke, and
Padraig Pearse. Tomás Ceannt’s execution was followed three days later, on May
12th, by those of James Connolly and Sean MacDiarmada and finally by
Roger Casement on August 3rd.

The executions
caused profound shock and there was rising anger across the country. The
reaction of many Irish people was summed up by the writer George Bernard Shaw
in a letter to the Daily News:

"My own view... is that the men who were shot in cold blood
after capture or surrender were prisoners of war, and that it was, therefore,
entirely incorrect to slaughter them.

"The shot Irishmen will now take their places beside Emmett
and the Manchester Martyrs in Ireland and beside the heroes of Poland and
Serbia and Belgium in Europe; and nothing in heaven and earth can prevent it.''

That is the
calibre, spirit and fearless determination of the man re-interred last Friday.
Like many other men and women before and since Tomás Ceannt demonstrated
incredible courage and selflessness in the struggle to free Ireland from
British occupation.

Enda Kenny in
his oration at the graveside was right when he said that “Ireland needs people
who believe in their community, their country and in putting others before
themselves” but his Ireland is 26 counties. His remarks are set in the context
of partition and ignore the reality that a part of Ireland is still under the
control of the British government.

The approach of
the Fine Gael/Labour Government to this Centenary has been shallow and wholly
self-serving. Tomás Ceannt engaged directly in revolutionary armed activity
against British rule in Ireland. He was what many successive Dublin Governments
would have termed a 'gunman'.

Unlike the
Government, Sinn Féin makes no apology for recognising this fact. We salute Tomás
Ceannt's stand and will not attempt, like the Labour leader Joan Burton, to
re-write history to fit narrow party political objectives or to misrepresent
the facts.

This Government
has nothing in common with men like Ceannt, nor any intention of promoting the
ideals to which he dedicated his life. The Government's Centenary commemorative
events will not discuss the unfinished business of securing the full
independence of Ireland. They will not seek to debate the failure of partition.

Nor will they
seek to debate the ideals of social equality which are at the heart of the 1916
Proclamation.

They do not
wish people to be reminded of the unfinished business of the Rising and the
struggle for independence. The most fitting tribute to Tomás Ceannt and to the
men and women of 1916 is to deliver the type of republic promised on the steps
of the GPO on Easter Monday 1916 - a
sovereign, 32-County republic in based on the principles of equality and social
justice.